SBS 2008 Upgrade Dealbreakers?

Hi All:

I just came back from the Windows 2008 Launch event with a preview of SBS
2008 and EBS 2008.

Given what I saw and heard, and knowing what I need to run my business, I'd
like to get a sense of what "dealbreakers" the community has in upgrading to
SBS 2008.

Going to EBS will be a major cost / complexity issue, so I'm not even
considering that as an upgrade path.

For me, the biggest dealbreaker will be the mandatory move to 64-bit. I can
see a lot of resistence for current users in the Small Business segment for
forklift upgrades to new hardware, especially in a "challenging" economic
environment when more cheap memory / disk will deliver immedate benefits.

Also, we are using a Brooktrout Fax board with Micorosoft Shared Fax for our
incoming faxes, and there does not appear to be 64-bit driver support from
Brooktrout from Day One. The investment in the Brooktrout hardware was
significant (more than the cost of SBS and server hardware combined!) and it
is a mission-critical device (or application?) now that we consolidated our
fax traffic.

In addition, we are running other server-side processes to support the
vertical apps we use. Though 64-bit versions are available for some of these
proceses, they have yet to be certified by our vendors for the vertical apps.

My understanding is the 64-bit move was forced by the inclusion of Exchange
2007 which is offered as a 64-bit only product. I thought there was a 32-bit
version of Exchange 2007 around for educational / testing purposes because
the 32-bit version wasn't optimized. Since SBS is capped at 75 users,
perhaps the 32-bit version of Exchange 2007 can be optimized for SBS's user
cap? Or why not keep Exchange 2003 instead because it works?

Another problem I have is the removal of ISA Server from SBS 2008 Premium.
We depend on ISA Server now to avoid spam, avoid intruders, and enhance the
users' internet experience. With the web cache, our users are often
surprised how slow our ISP connection is in reality.

So, in sum, my major dealbreakers for an SBS 2008 upgrade are:

- Box Swap to 64-bit hardware
- Brooktrout Fax board compatibility (64-bit issue)
- Unknown support for vertical apps
- No more ISA Server in Premium

What are your dealbreakers for upgrading to SBS 2008?

I suspect SBS 2003 will have quite a bit of life for a while....

---K
.

Relevant Pages

  • Problems upgrading to SBS 2003
    ... SBS 2000 with Exchange, ... I pulled SP1a for SBS from a CD and it seemed to run fine. ... must install Small Business Server 2000 Service Pack 1 before upgrading." ... Delete unnecessary files to free up disk space, ...
    (microsoft.public.backoffice.smallbiz2000)
  • Re: Upgrading SBS 2k3 Exchange to Exchange Enterprise
    ... upgrading the SBS version of Exchange to Enterprise is not ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: 1 NIC only in SBS 2008???
    ... The Dev team will not put SBS at risk. ... What was the undiscounted Exchange 2003 CAL price, ... For a high-end server operating system, ... SQL Server, Exchange Server, and ISA Server, and enough hardware to run ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: To separate Products of SBS 2000/2003
    ... With Exchange doing silly things the idea of a SINGLE box was causing nightmares for the company ... we looked at upgrading to full product ... BUT - we came across a local dealer at a seminar who told us to have a look at Novell's SBS ... I've checked out the various Novell discussion groups - this seems to be a way of life for Novell users. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: User account to run WSUS under
    ... But in simple terms ISA Server is designed to be run at the perimeter. ... I don't have a problem with ISA on SBS in theory, but in practice doing so means that you have SBS sitting at the edge. ... you'd deploy a front-end exchange server in the DMZ and your back-end server stays isolated. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
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